Between war and peace

Guided by the principles that inspired the European Union’s own creation, development and enlargement, the Lisbon treaty in 2009 codified a moral duty of the EU into a legally binding obligation: it shall “preserve peace, prevent conflicts and strengthen international security”. The EU not only owes it to itself to advance peace in the wider world; others too, like the United Nations, the United States and China, expect the Union to act as a peacemaker, especially in its own geographical neighbourhood.

But the EU has been dogged since its creation by the question of whether it can muster enough diplomatic clout effectively to contribute to peace in the world.

So far, the EU has played only a minor role as a dispute settler beyond its borders and its record has been mixed. The highest-profile failure was when the EU, freshly endowed with a common foreign and security policy (CSFP) and boasting that “the hour of Europe has dawned”, proved unable to stop the violent implosion of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. At the end of that decade, the EU again failed to quell armed conflict in the Balkans, this time in Kosovo.

Nevertheless, in his ten years as the high representative of the CSFP, Javier Solana tried to make the most of the cautious wording of his tasks in the treaties first of Amsterdam (which came into effect in 1999) and Nice (2003). The EU was instrumental in preventing or ending war in Macedonia in 2001 (by way of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, which stopped violent clashes between the Macedonian government and Albanian militias from spiralling out of control), between Serbia and Montenegro in 2002 (the Belgrade Agreement introduced a three-year cooling-off period before Serbia and Montenegro were allowed to separate), in Indonesia in 2005 (through the Aceh Peace Agreement, Indonesia agreed to give special autonomy status to its northern region), and in Georgia in 2008 (the Russo-Georgian ceasefire agreement was brokered by the rotating presidency of the EU).

The Lisbon treaty of 2009 re-designed the institutional framework to render the Union’s external action more coherent, visible and effective. Supported by the European External Action Service (EEAS), and after months of negotiations, Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, was able to strike a first agreement on the normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo this April. Apart from this EU-facilitated dialogue, the Union continues to lead international efforts in the so-called ‘E3+3’ to prevent nuclear proliferation in – and possibly war with – Iran. It is a member of the Quartet to get the Middle East peace process going again, and it supports similar efforts conducted under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the disputes over Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh. These efforts, however, have yet to produce positive results.

While the EU’s track record in high-level peace diplomacy is rather modest, it has worked towards the peaceful settlement of disputes in various corners of the world through enquiry, conciliation, mediation and negotiation. Away from the public eye, EU special representatives and EU delegations carry out peacemaking activities on a daily basis. As such, the EU has been instrumental in nudging the north and south Sudanese towards a peace agreement, in assisting efforts to broker peace in Mindanao in the Philippines, and in stabilising Myanmar (Burma). Financial and technical assistance is being given, restrictive measures are aimed at parties unwilling to co-operate in the search for a peaceful solution, EU ‘blue helmet’ operations of various kinds have been deployed to keep or build the peace, and much more.

The classic picture of the EU’s peacemaking efforts is one of concentric circles emanating from the Union’s bureaucratic centre: as the ripple effect expands, its impact weakens. The Union’s success story has been built on a strategy of wielding its ‘soft power’ to expand the zone of peace among aspirant members. The Cyprus issue stands out as a notable exception.

Diplomatic advantages

Yet the EU’s power of attraction beyond the European periphery is not negligible. While the history of member states’ colonial domination renders the EU’s diplomatic slate less clean than that of the Norwegians and the Swiss, the familiarity with previously held overseas territories plays to the Union’s advantage in bringing a political savoir faire to the negotiation table. Moreover, in large parts of Asia, the EU is seen as not having any substantial geostrategic interests to defend. This sets the Union apart from the US.

The combination of a perception of its neutrality, its deep knowledge of local affairs, its exemplary nature as a peace project (recognised in the award of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize), and its ability to offer substantial carrots by combining trade and development assistance is the key to a future role for the EU as a global peacemaker. Far-flung countries like Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam already see possibilities for the EU to play the role of honest broker to settle long-standing territorial disputes between themselves, notably in the South China Sea.

While the EU is equipped with a rich toolbox, it has so far used its diplomatic instruments only in an ad-hoc fashion. As part of a comprehensive approach to conflict prevention and resolution, the EU should strive to optimise the use of its existing tools, in full co-ordination with member states, the UN, regional organisations such as the African Union, the League of Arab States and the OSCE, and national, local and civil-society actors. The EU should be able to offer strategic guidance, deliver expertise, and deploy both high-level personalities and technical experts.

It is here that the EEAS is expected to add value. The EEAS should continue its capacity-building efforts and put the analytical tools in place to better understand conflict, political economy and fragility; it should develop and publish best practices and guidelines; and it should use mediation in a more systematic way as a cost-effective instrument to prevent and resolve conflicts.

Once these elements have been put in place, it is worthwhile considering whether the idea of establishing a ‘European Institute of Peace’, an initiative jointly launched by Sweden and Finland and financially supported by Norway and Switzerland, could add value to the overall peacemaking capacity of the EU.

Steven Blockmans is the head of EU foreign policy at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and professor of EU external-relations law and governance at the University of Amsterdam.